“It’s like lightning striking twice,” says Forrest Sallee, about rediscovering the songs in his heart, “it’s like randomly running into and instantly connecting with that best friend from childhood who you’d lost touch with, who you hadn’t been able to find on social media. Songwriting was such a big deal to me, from the time I was about 17, and heard Neil [Young]’s After the Goldrush for the first time, until my mid-twenties, when I tried to actually share my creations with the world… I used to fantasize constantly about playing my songs for people, collaborating with other artists, putting my lyrics in the liner notes, et cetera, but when I finally got up the so-called courage to actually attempt these things, you know, things that require some vulnerability, a true sense of self, the ability to keep your ego in check, none of which had been beaten into me by life at that point, the songs just dried up.”

It’s hard to know whether it was being forced to grow up when his daughter was born, earning his MBA (yes, that happened), making his mistakes and taking his lumps, succumbing to alcoholism during the pandemic, giving up alcohol in early 2021, the grief, and subsequent feeling of rebirth that comes with a marital separation, or any of the other life events and milestones that a person encounters between their mid-twenties and early forties that did the beating, but the songs are back.

Drawing influence from the likes of Tom Petty, Emmylou Harris, Pearl Jam, Brandi Carlile, and Neil, of course, Forrest finds his deepest inspiration in, and feels most compelled to write about, intense human emotion. The feelings that connect us, that comprise our collective experience. That bond us together. That drive us apart. That bring out our best selves and our darkest shadows. That inspire us to great achievement and sacrifice, and also drive us to the limits of our mortal capacity.